by Lee Bond
Jerry Seinfeld couldn’t believe his luck. Oh, he was making the right decision in wasting no time enveloping Darren into the Church! The others –with the exclusion of Gary, who was fixated on growing his branch, and rightly so, given how fast his operation was taking off- were already on board with the idea of adding a new face to Church.
“What is it you’d like for us to do, Darren?” Jerry leaned forward, eager to simulate a bonding moment. “About your wife, your friends, your family?”
“I want them to leave me alone, sir.” Jordan took a deep breath and released it very slowly. “They’re a burden on my soul, one that I don’t want to deal with anymore. I want to get better, I want to get out of this hospital, and I want to see what I can do to repay the Church for its great kindnesses.”
“I can have Minister Steve send some of his people around to visit with your wife this very afternoon, if you’d like.” Jerry pulled out his phone. “They can be very convincing, given the right kinds of latitude.”
And, if Steve and his brothers failed to assist Ygritte, there was always Richie. And if Richie couldn't pull it off, well, Gary was always ready and willing to do a favor for the Church…
Inwardly, Jordan was snickering.
So ham-handed.
A better route would be to use ‘Minister’ Richie and his growing corps of Church spies straight away, find something that the devout and kindly Ygritte Freoli would prefer to be kept out of the public eye and use that to encourage the dozy cow to start over, fresh and new, somewhere else. Ironically, it was a shame the woman had become so persistent in visiting him, in making herself such an unutterable pain in his side; by involving the Church, Jordan was literally giving up the one guaranteed meal he could lay his hands on. Now the chance for fresh meat on the hoof was off the books for the foreseeable future.
Ah well. There were other ways to get what he really wanted out of life. Once out of the hospital, Jordan had no doubt he’d be neck deep in fresh kills.
“If … if …” Jordan stammered uncertainly. “If you think that’s best, sir, then yes, o-okay.” The ex-Conglomerate head could barely believe this little charade was enough to convince Jerry! The leader of the Church of Nothing was swallowing everything coming out of his mouth whole, not even bothering with questions.
How this man had risen to the top of the Church of Nothing was beyond Jordan.
In time, Jordan knew Jerry would have to suffer a distinct and poignant fall from grace. The power base offered by a planet-wide religious organization was, in many ways, strong enough to rival that of a Conglomerate.
Just the sort of thing he could use to hunt for Nickels.
“It’s no problem, Darren.” Jerry Seinfeld turned his one hundred percent honest smile on the man and was heartened to get one in return. “Minister Steve and his friends will convince your wife it’s time to move on. Without her hanging around, you’ll be able to get out of here that much quicker, and that’s something I think we can all agree is important, no?"
Jordan nodded.
“Absolutely, sir.” Jordan settled back down onto the bed, urging the beast within to quieten: now that real power was on offer, the hungry monster curled inside his bones wanted out more than ever.
“And Darren?” Jerry pressed ‘send’ on the phone. Steve would be in the Church gym right now, preaching about the necessities of having the perfect body for when the end came. A bit pointless, but it kept a certain … element … busy and worked out any aggression that might affect the Church.
“Yes?”
“Call me Jerry, Darren, call me Jerry.” Steve’s voice rang through the speaker, so Jerry angled his body a bit to give Darren a bit of quiet. “Hey, Steve, it’s me, Jerry. Yeah, hi. So, I’m here with Darren Freoli … oh, he’s doing fine, real fine. Getting stronger every day. Anyways, so we were talking about his wife, and he’s decided he’d like for her to not visit him. Anymore. At all. Yes, finally, right? So what I want…”
Jordan smiled. A bit of perversity struck him, so while Jerry had his back turned, the vastly altered human being allowed a bit of the beast to sneak out; while the Church leader prattled on about how he wanted Ygritte Freoli handled, Jordan allowed alien muscles to twist this way and that beneath his mutable flesh.
So wondrous. So glorious.
And when he was free of this place, free from pretending to be a wounded weakling, he’d be out there in the world, hunting both Garth Nickels and –of ever increasing importance- a fresh meal.
An almost impossible-to-see shift in Jerry’s posture suggested he and Steve were about done plotting Ygritte’s re-education, so Jordan quickly reigned the beast in. By the time the Church leader turned back, Jordan was the picture of perfect repose.
“Well, Darren, that little problem of yours will be taken care of before you know it.” Jerry patted Jordan on the shoulder. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Now that you mention it, s … Jerry, there is.” Jordan couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this sooner! “If … if we could get some changes to the menu they’re feeding me? I can’t stand this hospital food. I feel like they’re starving me. I need red meat, and lots of it. Maybe it’s the treatments, I don’t know. I’m hungry all the time.”
Jerry nodded. “I’m sure the Church of Nothing can do something about that. You get some sleep. I’ll arrange everything.”
“Excellent. Thank you for your help, Jerry Seinfeld. You and the Church have done so much for me. I can’t wait to begin paying you back.” Jordan let his eyes close, other, more powerful senses watching the Tenerekian tilt his head this way and that, smiling wide.
A few seconds later, Jerry Seinfeld left, leaving Jordan alone to his own thoughts.
Most of them were colored red, and wet.
Well, Thatwas… Easy?
Ute simply couldn’t resist the urge to rest his naked palm against the invisible and indestructible shield again, even though he knew –from recent experience- that it gave Tomas a major case of the angries; the elder Kamagana professed to understand all that it meant to be both a five thousand year old God soldier and someone infused with all the powers and abilities of Harmony, but apparently the sight of someone floating through space without any protection at all was enough to send an ancient EuroJapanese tech whiz into fits.
Ute grinned.
What was the point of being a God soldier if you couldn't do stupid shit every now and then?
Extending a naked hand, watching sweat and other moisture flake off in the form of tiny little ice crystals before disappearing into the void, Ute kept pushing until his hand would go no further.
Nothing. There was nothing there. Just as there hadn’t been an hour ago when he’d first succumbed to curiosity.
Ute looked over his shoulder. Tomas and the other Goddies were presently involved in performing some last minute physical alterations to the Quantum Tunnel’s exterior structure, so he had at least a few minutes before the cranky old man started screaming about the kinds of deaths he could expect from exposure to deep space.
The Fivesie retracted the guilty hand, choosing instead this time to push outwards with Harmonically-enhanced senses.
The power flowing through him struck the shield, only to scatter away like water being shot through a hose at a ferrocrete wall. Ute shrugged and upped the output, more from curiosity than anything else; the surge rolling from his extended hand was strong enough to crush someone into a fine paste, so he was interested to see how the shield would react.
Ute kept pushing, unsure of the purpose behind his actions, other than perhaps a willful effort to give himself a migraine. Strains of Harmonic presence flowed towards him, and off in the distance, he felt his brood paying a bit of curious attention. He urged them to maintain focus on reforging the Quantum Tunnel to Tomas’ direct specs; they were only going to have the one chance, and if they blew it, they'd all have to deal with the old man's mighty wrath. To drive the warning home, Ute sent them a mental p
icture of Tomas chasing them around the solar system with a deadly walking stick aimed at their backsides.
They signaled amusement at their great-grandsire’s ridiculous fascination with the invisible wall and went back to work.
There. Not much of a change. Barely more than a whisper, an eggshell-thin projection of energy that evanesced into a harsh, scintillating platinum under his Harmonic sight.
“Amazing.” Ute whispered, shaking his head in wonder. The shield was barely a micron thin, yet kept Trinity’s Army forever at bay, no matter the weapon or tactic they used.
And they’d used some doozies.
As a Fivesie, Ute had access to damn near anything he’d ever feel the need to see, so he’d finagled access to ultra-restricted video footage of the Army trying to batter their way in.
Captured by the Gargan and Smash All Infidels' long range visual scanners, the recordings showed Trinity’s assembled forces using weapons in a dangerous and ill-advised manner, leaving everyone witnessing their enemy’s dangerous recklessness pleased that the shield was doing it's job properly; had any of the Army's flagships made it through, this little scrap would've started off very differently. Ute pressed harder with his senses, trying to use his instinctual knowledge of combat techniques to see if he could somehow magically uncover a weak point in the shield. The only thing he got for his efforts was a piercing stab of pain lancing right through the very center of his brain, so he pulled back and contented himself with the awe-inspiring view.
“Thank Pete this thing is clear.” Ute rumbled. “What a disaster it’d be if we managed to punch through and fell right into the hands of waiting Specter forces.”
“I am told Huey considered using a higher opacity index,” Tomas’ voice came over the headset, faint and breathless as he jockeyed for a better position beside Agrimal, “similar to The Cordon that allegedly surrounds all of Trinityspace, but he changed his mind. Didn’t want anyone coming face to face with that endless black wall. It’s apparently quite … for the love of everything sacred and sane, Ute, would you please put your glove back on.”
“Relax Grandfather Kamagana,” Agrimal’s dry voice was full of spectacular Goddie amusement, “it’d take something more than just space to kill Ute. He could swim naked in the stars and come out smelling like roses.”
“More like burnt shubin, I find.” Trista interjected. “Every time I’m helmetless in space, I get so hungry. It’s not even funny. Though with Ute being so old, I suppose there is every possibility he could smell like roses after coming in from the cold.”
“You people are hilarious.” Ute grumblingly obliged Tomas’ panicky request and held his gauntleted hand up so everyone could see he was officially playing it safe. “I certainly hope I don’t sound like this.”
“As a matter of fact,” Tomas added with a bit of a chuckle, “you are a bit worse. Your sarcasm and sardonic humor could easily be weaponized.”
“You see?” Salax nodded. “I told you, grandsire. We are but apples on the tree of sarcasm. You are it’s roots.”
“A great and mighty system of roots,” Trista laughed, “stretching for thousands of years, drinking deep in the ocean of cynicism.”
Ute shook his head. Children. They were awful. He accessed his suit controls and willed the booster packs to jet him towards where Tomas and the others were at last finishing their last minute project. “Do you people practice when I’m not paying attention? It seems far too clean to be off the cuff.”
“On our honor, grandsire.” Agrimal rest a hand on her armored chest. “We absolutely do not practice sarcasm while you sleep. That would be unfair.”
“Child,” Ute eyeballed the skeletal framework his friend and children had welded into place all across the Q-Tunnel's frame, “I have uttered sentences so scathingly vitriolic in content, entire worlds have buckled beneath the weight of my words. This one time, past The Cordon, when the world was young and you were thankfully an unfired shot in your father’s holstered service weapon, I did battle with the gargantuan Gar-Ton of Toomshel, and just as he was about to sever my head with his deadly vibro-ax, I commented on the terrible nature of his shoes. He died of embarrassment right there on the spot.”
“Hah! Fruit. Trees. Roots. I get it. It’s because we’re family, right? And old. Old family fruits. No. Wait.” This came from Shoonty, who was welding upside-down because he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of synching his cybernetic implants with his gear.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Shoonty. The redheaded stepchild of this secret cabal.” Trista and the others burst out laughing. A few seconds later, they bombarded the slow-witted Shoonty with nothing but love and appreciation through their Harmonic connection, and all was well.
“Tell me again why we’re delayed three full days, Tomas.” Ute didn’t like the ‘forced’ delay, not at all.
The nagging urge to be on the other side of the shield grew ever more pronounced, and for the first time since he’d set himself on this quest, Ute understood the dangerous impatience Garth had displayed when he'd first arrived on Hospitalis; the redoubtable warrior had told the Goddie all about the pressing geas to find The Box, and how that’d all been orchestrated by a handful of hoary techno-ghosts and their dreams of resurrection, and about how he'd had little choice in controlling his nearly wanton urge for mayhem.
If what he was felt right then was a fraction of the murderous impetus Garth had endured, it was little wonder the man had made such an … explosive appearance on Hospitalis.
Ute was fairly going out of his mind! With his own urgency at the forefront of his mind, the Fivesie reflected that Hospitalis was lucky Garth had managed to get his shit in order.
“And pretend you’re trying to explain things to Shoonty and Gorak. The rest of my brood are positively radiant with their understanding of these complicated things.” Ute added after a moment’s consideration.
“I don’t know why you’re lumping me in with Shoon… ouch.” Gorak raised his arm. “Um. Agrimal. I welded my arm. Again.”
“For the love of Pete.” Agrimal jetted off from where she was, angling herself smoothly and deftly towards Gorak and his now malfunctioning suit-arm.
Tomas cleared his throat. “If everyone could stop jabbering for a moment, I’ll take a few seconds to respond to your grandsire’s positively anarchic insistence that he knows nothing about science and technology.”
Ute drawled, “That’d be swell, Tomas.”
Tomas jetted himself slowly but surely towards where Ute rested. Without direct cybernetic access to the control mechanisms of his EVA suit, the old EuroJapanese hacker was using a much clumsier –and far less accurate- HUD-eye control tech, and he was considerably reluctant to go full bore, even if he’d be rescued in less than three seconds. Some things were just too great for an old man to risk.
Once he was beside his friend, Tomas began explaining, “My original calculations were based on us being able to locate a curved portion of the shield upon which to generate our distortion field. I’d planned on being able to use the concave portion as a kind of … hm … focal point. Though it would’ve been a very gentle curve, it would’ve been enough to help focus the distortion with a little more accuracy. Without it, we’d be projecting our efforts on a gigantic flat screen.”
“And that’s no good because why? Look at the size of this thing, Tomas, this Quantum Tunnel is gigantic. It has the power to send a ship to the other end of the Universe. What would it matter?”
Tomas held his retort in check, knowing full well why Ute was impatient and surly; he wanted to be on the other side of the shield just as badly as the God soldier, and the ramifications of their delay were weighing just as heavily on him.
“It’s true, the Tunnel does have enormous power. But the shield has more. It’s being fueled by things that have power to last for many more millions of years, and that's under constant bombardment." Tomas struggled to find an analogy that would work for the militarily minded Ute. “Sa, have you ever
used a blowtorch?”
“Yes, I have. Used an arc-cutter once, to dig through the armor plating on a Vallurian Tempest Cruiser out past the Farmilian Way.” Ute grinned toothily. That’d been a fun day.
“Excellent, good.” Tomas nodded. “Imagine that the Tunnel’s projection is like that arc-cutter’s flame, at the lowest setting. Still powerful enough to do damage, but not exactly a piercing beam. Our shield is like the, er, Tempest Cruiser. When you play that fire against the armor, what happens?”
“Dispersal. The flame travels too far out, and nothing gets done.” Ute nodded enthusiastically. “And if I were to turn that same low-level flame into a concave surface, it'd be more effective because the heat wouldn’t be escaping quite as much.”
“Just … for the love of Pete, Shoonty, stop pulling on that strut like that! You’ll break it.” Tomas couldn’t believe how idiotic the Onesie was. At first, he’d thought that the youngest member of their secret organization was addicted to the mind-numbing drugs that’d crippled the God Army for centuries, but as it turned out, Onesies were almost always morons to begin with; while the God soldier conversion technique was nearly instantaneous -as was introduction into Harmony- it still took quite some time for all those cybernetic and synergistic components to make the proper connections deep in the neural tissue.
Thus, Onesies were and always would be complete goofs until they hit Twoesie status. “Anyways, just so. We can’t risk moving the Quantum Tunnel a second time, so we’re stuck here. And thus, the modifications I’ve made.”
